Living by a Moment
by Nopes
Summary: Going back to the past wasn't part of the plan. All I wanted to do was get rid of Gadreel's grace, but Chuck had other ideas. Not that I mind having a chance to prevent the apocalypse, but getting transformed into some angel-kid thing? Not part of the plan. Now, I have to keep anyone from finding out while also hiding from all the demons and angels that keep trying to kill me.
1. Tacos and Nothingness

"Sammy, do you want to get tacos for dinner?"

Nothing.

"Dude. Tacos?"

Nothing.

I looked over at Sammy. The poor kid was knocked out. His head was bouncing against the window in a way that somehow doesn't give him migraines. He managed to get curled up with his knees in the side of the door.

I sighed. Drive-thru it is. The kid has had a rough time sleeping recently, I wasn't going to ruin the little bit of sleep that he was managing to get if I didn't have to.

The drive back to the motel room was quiet and boring. I kept the volume lower than usual to keep from waking Sammy up. But we were there now, so Sammy'd just have to deal with getting up.

"Sammy, dude, wake up."

Nothing.

I shook his shoulder.

"Sammy! Come on, dude. You never sleep this hard."

Nothing.

"Sammy? Wake up already. We need to get inside," I kept shaking him. I started to feel panicked. Did he get cursed? What if he was poisoned? Was Sammy dying? That'd be just like him- die as revenge for us needing to move again.

Nothing. A stab of panic flashed through me. I put my hand gently over his mouth and nose and was able to feel him breathing. The panic I had felt building in my chest instantly dispersed. Kid was fine, just being stubborn about waking up.

"Sammy? Don't tempt me to let you spend the night in the car!" I tried threatening.

Nothing. Didn't work.

I looked over at our motel room's door. Then I looked back at Sammy. I sighed. What's with Sammy today? It was the weekend, it's not like he could be exhausted from taking more finals. His last one was yesterday. I grabbed the take out bags and took them to the room.

Dad's day bag was still gone. He wasn't supposed to be back for another couple hours. Assuming that things went easily with the ghost haunting the Mason's old house.

I propped the motel room door open before going back to the car. Sammy may be a teenager, but he was still on the short side, so it wasn't too hard for me to pick the kid up. I nudged the door shut with my elbow and hurried back into the room. Sure, the kid was still small, but not small enough for me to want to linger around holding him. I set him on our bed. How the kid managed to sleep through all of that... it was impressive, to be honest. And it just made me think back to when me and Sammy would fall asleep in the backseat and I would wake up to Dad carrying me into whatever motel we were staying at. It was always so cool that he was able to carry both me and Sammy while we were sleeping and still bring in our stuff and open the door. I was convinced he was Superman or something.

I grabbed the salt before fixing the line in front of the door and checking the line in front of the windows. Still good.

I put aside Sammy's food in the mini-fridge in the room. Aside from the fried chicken from Walmart, which was dated for a week ago, there wasn't anything else in there. Well, he hopefully won't end up with radioactive poisoning or something from having his food so close to the chicken. Either way, he can deal considering I had to carry his ass into the room.

I sat down on Dad's bed and grabbed the remote and to start flipping through channels. Nascar. Golf. History Channel. Nascar. Spongebob. Sesame Street. More Nascar. You'd think these people like Nascar, it's not like they have like five channels all with different angles of the same race happening or something. Suite Life of Zach and Cody? Better than Nascar, I guess.

I ended up flipping through channels a few more times before Dad got home. He set his bag down on the desk and sighed. I sat up to look closer at him.

"How'd it go? Did you gank it?" I asked.

Dad shot me a grin. "Sure did. Things go well here?"

I started to nod, but I looked at Sammy again instead.

"Sammy's been conked out for awhile. I guess all those finals must have really wiped him out. I had to carry him into the room and he didn't even wake up the whole time," I told him.

Dad jerked his head to look closer at Sammy.

"What did you do to try and wake him up?" he asked.

"I just shook him a bunch and kept talking to him. Usually that's good enough. Besides, he hasn't slept through me dragging him out of the car in a long time," I said.

"Hmmm..." Dad walked over to Sammy and started checking his pockets. "Well, it doesn't look like he has anything cursed on him. Maybe he's just that exhausted. Kid needs to start drinking coffee," Dad muttered.

"So you think he's fine then?" I asked.

Dad nodded. "Yeah, there's no sign of a witch in town and he doesn't have anything cursed. Probably a safe bet that it wasn't anything supernatural this time. If he's still out by check out tomorrow I'll start making calls. But for now, I'm going to take a shower and get this ash off of me."

I watched Dad grab clothes out of his bag before heading into the bathroom. It didn't take long before I head the shower switch on. I stood up and stretched. Now that Dad was home, I needed to get off his bed. No point waiting for him to kick me off of it. Might as well change for bed too.

It was easy to shove Sam over to one side of the bed. After a bit of debate, I even yanked his shoes off and stuck him under the covers. Just because he's staying still for now, doesn't mean he'll stay that way, and I don't feel like being kicked while he's wearing shoes. And we don't need dirt in the sheets.

"So he hasn't woken up since yesterday evening? How was he acting before he fell asleep? Any migraines or backaches or something?"

"I wasn't there when he went to sleep, Dean had him. And what do you mean, does he have backaches? We live in a car, Jim!"

"I know you live in a freakin' car, John. So basically he could've, but it was probably from being squished in that old car of yours? Great. When'd he get his meningitis shot?"

"His appointment is next week."

"Fuck. John, I think you might need to go to the hospital. If he has meningitis, he could be on Death's Door. I mean it, John. I had somebody end up in a coma and die a few days later from meningitis before. I care about those boys too much to let you try and brush this off."

"What did Pastor Jim say?" I asked once Dad hung up the phone.

Dad sat down on the bed and just sighed. Shit. That can't be good.

"Dad?"

"He thinks it might be meningitis," Dad said.

I frowned as I tried to think of why that sounded familiar.

"Wasn't Sam supposed to get a shot for that next week?" I asked.

Dad nodded. Fuck.

"Is it serious?" I asked.

Dad looked at Sammy.

"Can you grab our bags? I'll put Sammy in the backseat of the Impala."

We made quick work of getting to the hospital. The nurses were quick to usher Sammy into a bed once they saw Dad carry him into the ER. I guess that's one good thing of coming in with an unconscious person. They wheeled him off for MRIs and CAT scans and blood testing and who knows what. Hospitals always liked turning Sammy into a lab rat, and they tended to think of ten other tests that they could try on him to check things out. That's why we avoided hospitals. They tried to snatch him even when he wasn't a patient.

Me and Dad just stayed sitting in the guest chairs provided in his little curtained off area. We took turns waiting for Sammy to get wheeled back and for going on little trips around the hospital to check things out and grab coffee. But right now, Dad was starting to nod off in his chair and I was counting ceiling tiles.

"Knock knock," a doctor said, standing at the curtain.

I yawned. "Hey doc, how's Sammy doing?" I asked.

He shot a look towards Dad, and I jumped a little in my seat before nudging him awake again. Guess it would be better to let the doc explain things only once.

"Hello, Mr. Winchester. And are you...Samuel's brother?" the doctor asked, shooting a look towards me.

I nodded. "I'm Dean."

"Hmmm, well Dean, Dad, in a minute Sam should be back. I'll check out all of his scans and see if anything shows up on them. But for now, could you tell me about Sam? Did he use any drugs?"

"What?" I asked. "No! He's a goody-two-shoes kinda kid. He probably doesn't even know what weed smells like."

Dad shot me a look for that.

"What? You act like you never tried it!" I said defensively.

"We'll talk about that later," Dad directed at me. Come on! He turned back to the doctor. "Is there anything else it could be? Sammy's really not the type to take drugs."

The doctor did that Hmmm-ing thing that they always do when they don't quite believe you, but don't want to create drama by arguing about things. Whatever. He'd see soon enough that Sammy's not on drugs.

"Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait for the test results to come back before we'll know for sure why he's not waking up. We'll keep you update as we learn everything," the doctor said before walking off.

Dad glared at the doctors back as he walked away.

Before we could have another shift of walking-around-the-hospital, Sammy was wheeled back in on his bed. We rushed over to him as soon as the nurses were finished hooking him up everywhere. He was still asleep.

"Did you-" Dad started to ask before cutting off.

I turned to look at what interrupted him. The curtained area was empty, so it's not like he saw something suspicious. Oh. It was empty. The nurses took advantage of us being distracted with Sammy and escaped to avoid us interrogating them on Sammy's condition. Bastards.

"Dean? What's going on?"

My head slammed up faster than I thought was possible when I head my name.

"Sammy!"

I threw my arms around him.

"Dean, why am I in the hospital?" Sammy asked really slowly, like he does when he thinks I'm making a stupid decision.

I fished in my pocket for my phone so I could call Dad before hitting the nurse call button on Sam's bed.

"You've been sleeping for five days kiddo. Nothing could wake you up. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with you," I explained.

"Oh," Sammy said before leaning back against his pillows again.

I found Dad in my contacts list and hit call right as a nurse finally arrived. She shooed me out of the room so she could check up on Sam in private.

"Dean?" Dad answered.

"He's awake!" I burst out.

"I'm on my way. Is he talking?" Dad asked.

"Yeah, he was asking questions and everything," I said.

The elevator across the hall dinged. The doors opened up to reveal Dad and Bobby with coffee and food. That was convenient. I hung up the phone. They spotted glanced around the hallway before hurrying towards me.

"Why aren't you with him?" Dad barked at me once he got closer.

I waved a hand at the door to Sammy's room. "Nurse kicked me out," and no, I was not pouting, thank you very much.

Bobby snorted before pushing open the door. The nurse was right there, just waiting for us with her beady librarian eyes that look like they'll suck out your soul and all your happiness if you look at her too long. Maybe she had sex with a Dementor.

"Which one of you is Dean?" she snapped.

I tried to look past her to see into the room, but she caught me and angled her body to block Sammy.

"Me, now can I go see Sammy, lady?" I asked, still trying to look around her.

She rolled her eyes at me and sighed.

"Just you. He won't quit asking for you. I had to stop him from pulling out his IV when he tried to follow you," she complained.

I ignored her and gently nudged her to the side so I could get into Sam's room. She did that offended-old-lady hmmph sound that old ladies always seem to do when you don't give them the attention they believe they deserve.

"Dean!" Sammy called from the bed.

I hurried over to him.

"Hey kiddo."

"Lady, would you move out of the way? My son has been unconscious for five days. Let me go see him!" Dad was snarling from the doorway.

"Mr. Winchester! Children do not need the stimulus from having multiple people in their hospital room. I insist. You must stay out of the room!" Nurse Grey-haired librarian ordered.

Sammy leaned into me, peering at the scene over my shoulder.

"That lady's a real piece of work, Sammy. I can't believe she kicked me out earlier. I knew I should have waited to call a nurse in to check on you," I started babbling.

Sammy just hummed a little to show he was listening.

"Nurse Louis! Nurse Louis! Charlie needs your help in the Beckler's room," another nurse shouted.

Sammy's nurse shot Dad a glare before hurrying down the hall. Bobby and Dad rushed into the room the second she was out of the way.

"Sam, how are you feeling? Dizzy, nauseous? Are you hurting anywhere?" Dad started asking.

Sammy shook his head, "I feel fine. Why was I asleep for so long? Is something wrong with me?"

Bobby pulled up one of the seats next to Sammy's bed before talking, "We couldn't find any hex bags or cursed objects on you. And the doc's couldn't figure out what was keepin' you under. Do you remember anything that could explain why you've been asleep?"

Sammy frowned and leaned back into the pillows again, dragging me with him. He yawned while he was thinking.

"I dunno, Uncle Bobby. Last thing I remember before the Reapers surrounded me was when I was sitting in the car with Dean," Sammy said.

I shot up and put my hands on Sammy's cheeks to force him to look at me. I couldn't help but track my eyes all over his face, looking for any wounds that I could have missed, and doing my best to memorize him.

"Reapers? Sammy, where did you even hear about Reapers?" I asked. Bobby kept repeating "Balls" under his breath. Dad started pacing the room.

Sammy just shot me a confused look. "It was Tessa, Dean. She told me to tell you hi. She wasn't there to reap me!"

I shot a look over at Dad, unsure how to react. Dad walked over and took Sammy's hands.

"Sammy, who's Tessa? Why would you call her a Reaper?" he asked.

Sammy kept looking at all of us, looking like a puppy that got trapped in a herd of chickens.

"Dean? Don't you remember?" he asked, nibbling on his lip.

I just shook my head. I didn't know anyone named Tessa, much less a Reaper! I didn't even know that they had names.

"Sammy," Bobby called, making Sammy turn towards him. "What did you and Tessa do?"

Sammy smiled. "We mostly played poker!"

"Knock knock."

The doc poked his head into the room. "Hello Sam, it's nice to finally meet you. I've been hearing a lot about you from your family."

The doc's small talk went on for awhile as he tested Sam's reflexes and did the usual routine checks. Finally, the doc let out a sigh as he tapped his pen against the clipboard holding Sam's chart.

"What's up, doc?" I asked, already feeling "Big Brother Mode" turning on.

The doc shook his head a little. "I'm stumped. There's nothing in your bloodwork, no allergic reactions, no nothing. I just can't find a single thing that could have caused you to fall into that coma. I don't think we'll able to find anything at this point, so I'll bring you the discharge paperwork in a bit. It's so strange, it's almost as if you were cursed or something,"

"Hi, Sam. Is this your brother?" the receptionist asked once he got off of the phone.

"Yep!" the pipsqueak chimed in.

"Hi, um, Sammy was wanting to take some placement tests? Like to see if he could skip some classes or something?" I said. I wasn't too sure what to ask for. I didn't even know you could skip classes.

The receptionist, "Mark Addams", looked at Sammy shocked for a second. Then the dude shrugged and started looking for something in a cabinet behind him. He turned back to us with a stack of papers.

"Alright, follow me," he said before walking out of the office. "So, you'll have to take this in the detention center, I'm afraid. That's the only place with any adults around right now that are able to watch you. But I'm sure if there's any kids in there for detention they'll stay quiet. I'll just threaten them with some random standardized test. This won't have a time limit, and any scrap paper that you use has to be given to the teacher instead of thrown away. It'll have to be shredded..."

I swear I was getting flashbacks to when I was still suffering through high school. Not something worth repeating.

The wait seemed agonizing to me, and I wasn't even taking the test. After awhile, I drove down the road to a little diner to get some pie to eat. But sure enough, Sammy called me within a couple hours.

Sammy met me at the curb in front of the school.

"So how'd you do?" I asked.

Sammy twisted around to grab his seatbelt after I glared at him a little.

"I think I did alright. They'll call within a month with the results. Hopefully, it won't take that long though," the kid pouted at the thought.

I ruffled his hair.

"Sure you don't want me to mention it to Dad?" I offered.

He shook his head real quick. "No, I'll just go to the library and take online classes while I would've normally been at school. If we tell him, he won't let me do that."

I nodded in agreement, though I didn't bother pointing out to Sammy that he was a bit of a freak for deciding to graduate a couple years early just so he could go to college sooner. Weirdo.


	2. Getting Answers

"What do you think you're doing?" I barked out.

Sammy froze before answering, "Um...stretching?"

"Why."

"So, I can go on a run?" Sammy said, like he was stating the obvious.

I sighed before pointing my finger at our bed. "Now, Sammy!"

He just gave me this shocked and pissed off look before storming over to the bed.

"Why do I have to stay in bed all the time? I'm sick of it!" He protested.

Damn kid. Time for the big guns. "You like just got out of your mystery coma last week, Sammy. We still don't know what caused it. Do what I say, or I'll just tell Dad about how you decided to graduate early, he'll make you start hunting more now that you aren't in high school."

He just gave a dramatic sigh before burying his face in his pillow.

"You're such a jerk!" was probably said. But I can't be sure because his face was still in the pillow.

I just rolled my eyes. "Bitch."

Then, there was a couple knocks on the door. "Housekeeping!" a man called out before kicking in the door.

I lept for a gun and turned to face the intruder. He looked human, but that didn't mean much. I made sure to keep myself between Sammy and Mr. Not-a-Housekeeper.

"Sammy, come on out. I just want some answers from you," the man cooed, as if Sammy was a toddler.

I chanced a look back at Sammy, the kid was out of the bed at least, and he looked shell-shocked. "Stay behind me!" I ordered.

"Come now, Dean. Let the kid come over here," the man directed at me.

I snorted, as if I would let my kid go over to that creep.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, come out, come out, wherever you are. You know the answers that I am looking for," the man continued.

"Alistair?" Sammy whispered.

The man shot a look at Sammy then, as if he could learn all of his secrets by staring at him hard enough.

"Now that's interesting, where did you hear that name?" he asked.

Sammy lept for the salt and threw it at Alistair instead of replying. I fired my shotgun at him. He just laughed and laughed and laughed.

"Salt! That's a good one, kid," he smirked at Sammy. Then, he snapped his fingers.

The walls started shaking, and dust fell from the ceiling. More people came inside the room, all with solid black eyes. Sammy made a choked sound behind me.

"Demons, Dean! It's demons!" he shouted at me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fucking fuck. How do I protect Sammy from demons? How does Sammy even know about demons?

Then, there was a shattering sound behind me, forcing me to turn around, hoping it was Sammy escaping. Those hopes were dashed when I saw a demon crawling in through the window. I dropped the gun and caught the bag of salt that Sammy threw at me.

"Sammy!" I shouted, before trying to rush over to him.

"Make a circle, Dean!" he shouted before Window-Demon grabbed him.

Salt. Right. Sammy threw some earlier, so he thought it would help. I grabbed a handful and tossed it at the demon with Sammy. It started screaming, so even though I hated myself for every second it kept me from Sammy, I started making a circle around myself. But before I could finish, I felt a blow to my head, and black crept around the edges of my vision.

"Dean!" Sammy yelled, before the demons surrounded him.

"There's been a surge in the amount of demons on Earth. Something has happened. Check the Winchesters and see if you can find any answers," were the orders I was given.

Find out if this was the beginning of the apocalypse, he meant. We hadn't noticed the Righteous Man making a deal with Hell, but the demons could be instigating events to make it happen soon.

I search the prayers on Earth, searching for someone to be my vessel. Finally, I found the right one to approach, and he was willing to help Heaven's path.

I moved to different areas on Earth that had recent demon activity, searching for answers. Finally, I went a motel where the Winchesters were staying. Dean Winchester was holding ice to his head and talking to John Winchester and Robert Singer. I listened in for details.

"Sammy called them demons, some of them were affected by salt, they started screaming when I threw it on them, but that first one, Sammy called it Alistair-" I cursed before leaving.

Definite demon involvement then. And Samuel Winchester was obviously taken by the demons. If they weren't there to capture him to begin with, they would have to receive answers on how Samuel knew about who Alistair was and to find out what else he knew.

This time, I searched directly for Samuel Winchester's location. It was strangely clouded to me, as if something was interfering with my Grace. This was concerning, especially if the Apocalypse was soon to begin. Michael would need to know where Samuel was, if he did end up being Lucifer's Vessel. However, I was still able to narrow down his location.

Samuel was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fortunately, my search of the city was greatly sped up by the fact that demons do not know how to avoid causing destruction wherever they go, and they set the building Samuel was in on fire. Perhaps this was their way to start the Apocalypse? Causing Samuel's death in the hopes that The Righteous Man will trade his soul for him? I noticed the demons lingering nearby the building, deciding whether to finish fleeing the scene or not. I had just decided to capture one to get information from, when I heard the screams.

The screams from inside the warehouse snatched at my grace, tugging my to the building. It was a strange feeling, almost as if there was a fledgling- but that was impossible. Fledglings had not been created since the war in Heaven. Fledgling or not, I could not ignore the tugging on my grace, and I went into the warehouse instead of chasing the demons.

It was simple avoiding fallen beams and burning piles along the ground. The sirens for emergency vehicles called in the distance. The screams continued to tug at my grace, leading me in the correct direction. Finally, I spotted the table that Samuel Winchester was strapped down to. He had multiple knives sticking into his limbs, helping to keep him pinned to the table.

I walked over to him, and began removing the knives. He locked eyes on me, before stopping his screaming to whisper, "Uriel."

"Yes. How did you know it was me, Samuel Winchester?" I asked.

He didn't answer, back to screaming as I removed another knife. This time, I couldn't prevent stumbling from the tug on my grace. Samuel's body flickered, momentarily leaving the Earth's plane. I paused, before studying him further. Even though Samuel was an abomination, he should not be capable of doing that. He was sprinkled with Holy Oil, which I had been taking care to avoid touching, but that had no effect on humans. There was nothing enchanted touching him.

I unstrapped Samuel from the table before forcing him to sit up. Then, I saw it. Wing buds, sticking out of his back. Not physical ones, of course. Ones made from grace, outside of human sight. That tugging was from a fledgling then. I removed the last knife from Samuel before flying us out of the burning warehouse. Samuel did not need to feel the agony of Holy Oil burns. I dropped him off in the Winchester's car before returning to Heaven.

"Michael. Raphael" I nodded to the archangels.

"Uriel, have you come to make a report on the demon's actions on Earth?" Michael asked.

I hesitated to organize my thoughts.

"I do not believe that Samuel Winchester will be able to serve as Lucifer's Vessel," I finally said.

Raphael tilted his head before speaking, "Explain."

"Alistair and several other demons captured Samuel for information, and left him in a burning warehouse," I began explaining.

"So he's dead then? Surely the Righteous Man is going to make a deal for him..." Michael interrupted.

"He's alive. But he's changed. As he was screaming, he was tugging at my grace... and he seems to be growing wings," I explained.

Michael and Raphael shared a look.

"Uriel, surely you were mistaken, the Winchesters are human, even if Samuel is an abomination," Raphael said.

"No, he had wings of grace, and his body kept disappearing from Earth's plane. He was even affected by the Holy Oil that was on him," I clarified.

Raphael seemed horrified. "If he really is a fledgling...he must be taken to safety. Did he have any burns from the Holy Oil?"

"I did not take him through the fire when we left," I stated. Then after a moment's thought, I continued, "He had several stab wounds from where knives pinned him to a table. Holy Oil could have entered his wounds."

Raphael cursed. Michael turned to him looking surprised at his strong reaction.

"If he is truly a fledgling, his grace will be extremely sensitive to the effects of Holy Oil. I will need to go to Earth and make sure that there will not be any lasting harm," Raphael explained.

"We need to search the town! How far could they have gotten with him? Surely they can't teleport or anything, he would have been kicking and screaming the whole time!" I yelled at Dad and Uncle Bobby.

"Dean, sit down. Look son, those won't figurative demons. Those were the make-a-trade-for-your-soul demons. If there were as many as you said there were, I don't know if there will be anything left of Sammy to rescue," Dad said.

I looked from him to Uncle Bobby, who's face seemed to agree with what Dad was saying. I couldn't listen to this. I wasn't going to give up on Sammy, even if they were. There had to be a way to find him. I stormed out of the motel and into the Impala.

Surely the demons couldn't have gone far, they would have been confident enough not to feel the need to leave town. Okay, okay, think like a villain. Where would I take someone that I want to interrogate? Can't be too public- Sammy could scream until someone called the cops. There aren't any woods nearby, so that's out. Shit, shit, shi- warehouses! The most cliche thing in movies! Okay, sketchy part of town, you better have Sammy!

The sketchy part of town didn't have Sammy. Same with the alleys. I was getting more panicked by the minute. Had I wasted time searching town for Sammy, when he was somewhere else? Could Dad and Uncle Bobby be right in thinking that he was, was dead?

I heard a sniffle from the backseat. I slammed on the brakes, causing my seatbelt to tighten up on me. I hurried to unbuckle it as I turned to look at what was back there.

Spread out over the seats, looking like the most precious sight I have ever seen in my life, was Sammy. I hurried to pull Baby over to the side of the road before jumping out so I could check on Sammy.

He was twitching like crazy, even though he didn't seem to be conscious. His clothes were soaked in blood and ash. The scent of smoke clung to him like fast food does to a car. I rolled up his sleeves and his pants to check for injuries. It looked mostly like stab wounds, which sent a bolt of fury through me. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be lethal, and he would be fine until I got us back to the motel room.

I tore myself away from Sammy long enough to get back up front, and then I drove as fast as I could to get back to the motel room.

I picked Sammy up before rushing to the room, and then I kicked the door several times to get someone to answer.

"Dad! Open the door!" I shouted.

The door slowly opened, and I was greeted with the business end of a shotgun. It was quickly moved out of the way once Bobby saw who I was carrying though.

"You found him?" Bobby asked, sounding as if I had just sweared off of sex.

Dad stood up from his seat on one of the beds. "Where was he?"

I set Sammy down on Dad's bed and started tugging off his clothes.

"I don't know-" I started to explain, only to get interrupted by Dad.

"What do you mean you don't know!" he barked.

"I found him in the backseat of the Impala," I said.

Dad and Bobby just stared at me in silence. I moved to grab the first aid kit so I could start working on Sammy's wounds.

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Bobby shouted.

Dad just shook his head in disbelief. "It doesn't matter. That must mean that somebody is on our side. But who do we know that can sneak someone away from demons?" he asked.

I was drawing a blank on answers. The only thing that would want to help us would be other hunters, and they didn't have the power to put Sammy in the backseat and prevent me from noticing him for the forty minutes I was searching, and they definitely wouldn't have been able to throw him in while I was driving. Tension settled over the room like a heavy blanket, and there didn't seem to be a way to get rid of it anytime soon.

Sammy stayed unconscious for the rest of the evening, and his shaking didn't stop, though it did seem to slow down after we cleaned up all the stuff that was on him. Bobby theorized that something on him was probably causing the shaking, and some of it may have gotten into his wounds or something.

When this kid wakes up, he isn't leaving my sight for a month. He's been unconscious too many times recently. I looked at the clock to check for how long Bobby and Dad were gone. Bobby went on a run to get more first aid stuff and Dad went to get food. They shouldn't be too much longer, all of us were on edge with the amount of times Sammy had been hurt and we couldn't do anything recently.

I sighed and looked over at Sammy. "Don't you dare move!" I ordered his unconscious body before rushing to the bathroom.

"Finally! I thought they would never clear out!" Raphael complained.

We hurried into the motel room while Dean Winchester was distracted. I went over to Samuel and rolled him onto his side so that Raphael could see his wing buds. He drew in a deep breath at the sight.

"Why would there be a new Fledgling now? That must mean that Father…" he shook his head in denial as he trailed off. "I need to take a look at his wounds. They won't be able to heal quite like normal wounds because of the Holy Oil," he stated.

I pointed out where all the wounds I saw while rescuing Samuel from the warehouse as Raphael treated them.

"Uriel. Raphael," Samuel whispered, looking at us in recognition as he regained consciousness.

Raphael stood straight in alarm. "How do you know us, Fledgling?"

Samuel groaned in pain as he sat up. "Nonya."

"I'm sorry? Who is this Nonya?" I asked.

He just giggled before saying, "Nonya business."

"Is this a well-known business then? We'll need to see how they know about us," I said in alarm.

Samuel just shook his head, "It's a- nevermind. Dean's about to come back out."

Raphael healed as quick as he could and we left right as the bathroom door opened.

 **AN:** **Well, I didn't plan on having Uriel so involved (I know I have him listed under characters, but he was supposed to come in later- same with Raphael and Michael). Oh, well.**

 **Also, forgot the disclaimer before. If you recognize it, it's obviously not mine. Boom, tah-dah. Later chickies.**


	3. Taken to Heaven

Dad was being paranoid again. It was strange being this young again. I forgot just how much everyone liked to mother hen me. I had to readjust to things like not being able to leave the motel room by myself, and needing to ask permission if I wanted to go to anywhere that wasn't school.

It was infuriating, but it was also kind of nice. Now that I had dealt with everyone not wanting anything to do with me, " _Save him or kill him_ ," I couldn't contain the flinch, it was a nice difference. Part of me couldn't help but wonder if this was because they didn't trust me, considered me a threat, but I had to remind myself that the apocalypse hadn't started yet. They would still consider me family at this point.

"Alright Sam, I'm going to want to leave in a couple hours. Do not run off, if there's trouble...scream, call me or Dean, and meet us at the McDonald's on 8th street. Do you need anything from me?" Dad asked.

I shook my head, "Nope, I'm good. I'll just go browse the books," I said.

He gave me a thumbs up before going over to the computers to research. I decided to head upstairs to see what kind of sections they had. This library was huge and downright drool worthy. It had taken a lot of begging to be allowed to come here with Dad, so I was definitely going to take advantage of being here.

Upstairs was where they had a lot of reference stuff. Not periodicals or anything, they must be on the third floor, but the regular nonfiction section stuff. It was really empty too, which wasn't surprising. I didn't have anything specific in mind to look for, Dad hadn't told me anything about what he was hunting, so I was just here to browse.

"Hello, Samuel."

I definitely did not scream, thank you very much. I was just surprised is all. I also did not get so surprised that I tripped and would have face-planted if Uriel hadn't grabbed my arm.

"H-Hello, Uriel. Not to be rude, but why are you here?" I asked.

He still had a hold of my arm, and I was starting to get nervous. I did not need to be flown away by angels right now. Especially since I wouldn't have a decent way to explain ending up halfway across the country or wherever he'd drag me without explaining that angels exist.

"You have wings budding through your back," he stated.

I closed my eyes and sighed. Fuck. Here it comes, lab rat time.

"I'm going to train you."

Wait, what? Did he just say train me? So I won't become an experiment at the brutal hands of Heaven's finest?

"What are you talking about," I ordered.

He gave me a puzzled look before gently tugging one of my wings. "Do you not feel this? Raphael! I need your assistance!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, I feel that. Raphael doesn't need to come, I meant that it doesn't make sense. Why would you decide to train me? Shouldn't you want to-" Raphael appeared. "-kill me?" I finished.

"Kill you? Who dares attempt it? Michael!" Raphael thundered. I shit you not, there was lightning and everything. Fuck. Well, maybe Dad won't think it's supernatural. Not.

I tried stepping farther back from Raphael, but Uriel's hold on my arm prevented me from getting very far.

"Um...you?" I said concerned.

Raphael exchanged a look with Uriel. "Did you not come here to train Samuel?" he asked.

Uriel nodded. Raphael walked over to me and put his hand on my head, like Cas does when he heals me or Dean. Naturally, that's when Michael arrived.

"Raphael, I came as soon as I could. What's wrong with Samuel?" he asked.

I felt the chill of Raphael's grace flowing over me, as if trying to hunt down any problem that I had.

"I'm not sure. Samuel seems to be under the impression that I am going to kill him. Is that why you called me down, Uriel?" Raphael said to the two angels.

Uriel shook his head. "Samuel seemed unable to feel his wings. I thought it would be best to have you check him over."

Raphael hummed. The grace flowing over me began to pulse. Once again, I tried to escape, but Uriel just kept his hold on me.

Finally Raphael pulled his grace away from me. "I can't find a reason for Samuel to not feel his wings. Samuel, why are you convinced we'll hurt you?" Raphael asked.

I looked at all three of them nervously. "Why wouldn't you? I'm a freak! You're going to make me a lab rat or something!" I yelled at them.

Naturally, they finally decided to drag me out of the library then. Let me tell you, experiencing an angel flying you around is a lot freakier when you have wings. It made my wings feel downright itchy. And I couldn't see anything, it was like my eyes couldn't keep up. But it didn't seem to be as instant as usual.

When we landed, it wasn't anywhere I recognized. It seemed to be a huge open hall. The floors were white, the walls were white, it was enough to remind me of when me and Dean went undercover at a mental institution. There were small groups of talking people- no, angels. Fuck.

"Where did you take me? Let me go!" I shouted.

"Samuel, please, you must calm down," Michael said, grabbing my shoulders.

I just looked at him like he was crazy. "Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to calm down? You guys fucking kidnapped me! Let go of me! I want to go home," I ranted.

If I survive this, there's no way in hell that Dad's going to let me leave the motel room again. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuckity- whoa. Uriel's grace flooded over me, forcing me to calm down.

"Samuel, listen to me," Raphael said. "We aren't going to kill you."

What? Why not? That makes literally no sense. These are angels. And they have me in what is probably heaven. Why wouldn't they take advantage of that?

"Samuel," Uriel moved so that he was standing in front of me. "I'm going to train you on how to use your grace. You do realize that the reason for your wings is because Father gave you grace, correct?"

All I could do was nod in silence. Damnit Chuck, why do you do this shit to me?

"Everyone! Gather around!" Michael called out, echoing within the hall.

What had to be millions of angels came rushing in, surrounding us on all sides. They stood in silence instead of talking amongst themselves. It was honestly one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

"Meet Samuel Winchester, our newest brother! Lucifer's vessel is no more, our Father has given him wings!" Michael called out to the hall.

A cheer went out from the army of angels.

I tapped on Uriel's arm. He leaned down to hear me better over the other angels.

"I really need to get back to the library. Dad's going to freak if he notices I'm not there. Can you take me back?" I asked.

He nodded, before turning to let Michael and Raphael know what he was planning.

Luckily, Dad was still on the computers when I got back. As irritating as it was that I managed to be kidnapped and he didn't notice, I was thankful that I didn't have to deal with him being even more protective over me. I ended up spending the last of the visit downstairs near Dad, reading the newest Harry Potter book.


	4. Talking to Bobby

**AN:** **Hello, my darlings! Sorry for the wait, but I've been drowning in essays (still drowning) and I haven't had the motivation to actually type this up for a while. Little shorter than the other chapters too and there's less action, but I think the next chapter will be a bit better.**

[Google Search: Tessa]

Domestic violence, food, Colorado... meanings!

...name of Greek origins, meaning "to reap, to gather". Fuck. How the absolute fuck. Of course it does. Why wouldn't a fucking Reaper's name mean "to reap". Why the fuck not?

It would be interesting to see if other Reaper's names also mean "to reap"... that may be something to look into in the future.

Anyway, fuck. That just gives some credibility to what Sammy said when he woke up, the kid may be smart, but he's not the type to look up random meanings of names. Okay, okay, maybe things will work out. I'll just look up Reapers. There's got to be a way to avoid them. Or kill them. Or something.

[Google Search: Reapers]

Grim Reaper, death, death, anime, song, mythology... maybe?

More death. More Grim Reapers. Random cultures that believe in some form of afterlife. Fuck. I can't protect Sammy from Death! People have been trying to escape Death for eternity! I gotta...where's Sammy? I need to check-

Oh, good. Sammy just came downstairs. He gave me his shy little grin before walking over. I hurried to X out the window I had open. I don't need to worry the kid. He grabbed the chair next to me and started reading.

[Google Search: News reports in Stillwater, OK]

Let's see...robbery, garage sale, new opening...

Ugh. I swear, this town has nothing. I can't even fake being on a hunt to keep Sammy from noticing what's going on. Maybe there's a ghost? It could be one of the weird ones that uses anniversaries to kill people.

I stalled as long as I could to give Sammy some more time to read, but eventually I decided that we needed to go ahead and leave. I was sick of searching for a hunt that apparently wasn't here.

"Come on, Sammy, we promised Dean we'd bring home pizza," I said as I ruffled the kid's hair.

"Kids, go out to the arcade or something. Me and Bobby want to talk," I ordered.

For once, neither one of them complained about not being included. Don't look the gift horse in the mouth and all that jazz, I guess.

"Lay it on me, Winchester," Bobby sighed.

I grabbed my stack of notes from the library. "What would you say if I told you that Reapers seem to only come up with results for Death, and that Tessa apparently means, "to reap"?" I asked.

Bobby pinched his nose and sighed before barking, "Balls!"

"That's what most of my research ended up pointing out. I didn't find anything else useful. But how am I supposed to protect Sammy from Death itself?" I sighed.

Bobby snatched my notes, confirming what I told him. He cursed again.

"Are you sure the only thing from your last hunt was a ghost?" I glared at him for suggesting I left something important out. He rolled his eyes at me.

"Okay, what about the hunt before that? What was it?"

Okay, that might be a useful question. I grabbed my journal so I could double check I didn't forget anything.

"Let's see, Woman in White... she was fairly typical. Killed her kids, went nuts, her fiance was cheating on her. I don't think she could have cause this," I said.

Bobby hummed as he kept checking over my notes. I took a swig of my beer to try and calm my nerves a little more. What would I do if I couldn't protect Sammy?

Finally, Bobby looked up from the notes. "Well, I don't think there's much we can do at the moment. Maybe it was a one of thing. But right now, there's just nothing to go off of to figure out what's behind it."

I jumped to my feet, "Dammit, Bobby! Can't you call someone and ask around!" I yelled.

Bobby rolled his eyes at me. "Winchester, sit your ass down. You know just as well as I do that there's nobody to ask. This is Death we're talking about. Hopefully, what Sammy saw was something just pretending to be a Reaper."

Well, that gave us a new avenue to research at least. What else could have put Sammy into a coma? Hopefully, and I hope I don't regret thinking that, but hopefully it wasn't really a Reaper that Sammy saw. I need to ask Sammy for more details. Didn't he say they played poker? What if Sammy accidentally traded away something? What if it was a demon in disguise? What if it was a witch wanting something from him? What if they altered his memory, can they even do that?

"Winchester, quit panicking and help me figure out a cover story so Sammy doesn't get all suspicious about what we're looking into," Bobby barked out.

Bobby gave me a look like I was the stupidest person on Earth. He's surprisingly good at that, not that I would be admitting that to him.

"Something's drowning people in some of the lakes, people claim it looks like an octopus, but they aren't supposed to live in freshwater..."


	5. Strange Dealings

AN: Hello, my chicadees! Sorry for the wait, pleeease don't hate me. I totally thought I would type up _something_ over the break. Anyway, I'm back.

P.S. That little comment about an octopus in Oklahoma? That's an actual thing. Also, props to some freaking awesome reviews I got from KK (guest on FFN) and Brenna1918 (AO3). Brenna1918, thanks for the inspiration!

Sam's POV:

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, Dean. I'm sure."

"But look, with all the shit that's been happening since summer started, maybe you shouldn't go to school this semester."

"With all the- Dean, it's not like if I wait a semester suddenly our lives will be normal!" I protested.

Dean sighed.

"But, Sammy, you've been through so much the last few weeks. The mystery coma, the kidnapping, the clo-"

"LaLaLaLaLaLa- I can't hear you!" I yelled, covering my ears.

It was too late. All I could think about was that stupid fucking creepy-ass clown that was haunting the mall when me and Dean were at the arcade not too long ago. Ugh. Time for some brain bleach.

Dean pulled my hands away, looking unimpressed.

"Dude, you've really got to get over that."

Fucker.

"I'll get over clowns the second you decide to never eat fast food again," I offered.

Dean put his hand over his heart and gasped.

"How dare you-"

"I could switch it to pie."

The car came screeching to a halt, and Dean just stared at me in horror. A car caught up to us and honked, moving Dean back into action.

For the next few miles to the library, all I heard was muttering from Dean.

"Pie. Of all things. Pie. My own brother...Damn demons. Their fault. I know it."

I snorted at some of the funnier comments, and any time Dean looked over accusingly at me I just raised my hands up in surrender.

He parked the car and looked at out at the library.

"Why do you have to do this? I mean, I get that you don't want Dad to find out that you managed to test through so many classes they let you graduate early, but can't we just go watch movies or go to the arcade or go bowling or-or-or something? Why do you need to do online classes?"

I sighed and leaned back in my chair as I thought of how to reply.

"Dean...I would love to do all that stuff. But, that won't last. Dad'll need you for hunts, and he'll find out pretty quick if we're doing that stuff every day. Besides, we don't have that kind of money."

"Damn. Fuckin' dammit. Why do you have to have a point?"

"You know-" I looked over at him. "You could help me find a class that will help me with hunting if you want?"

Dean snorted. "Like what? How to Spot a Werewolf? History of Guns? Wait, no, let me guess- Hunting the Supernatural 101?"

I smacked his arm. "No you dipshit, things like mythology, or law, or figure drawing."

"Figure drawing? What's that have to do with hunting?"

I thought back to our Snow White case. "You never know when you'll need someone to pretend to be doing a sketch of a suspect," I pointed out.

"Fair enough," Dean nodded.

Dean sighed for so long I thought he was about to start coughing before grabbing the door handle.

About thirty minutes later, I was starting to regret my decision. Not that I don't want to go back to college, but I forgot just how much paperwork was involved with getting registered as a Freshman. Also, can't say I was too excited about the fact that I was going to have to retake Statistics. But, whatever.

"So, it looks like I'm going to have to take Freshman Comp. 1, Statistics, and a science class this semester," I said to Dean, who was looking at the class options for something hunting related.

"Maybe you should go with Chemistry for the Non-Scientist?"

I shrugged and hit the sign-up button for the class.

"Well, you won't be able to go straight into Figure Drawing. You'll have to take Drawing 1 and 2 first. And there's a Citizenship and the Law class that you could take, it's an intro-level class."

"Okay...that'll get me to 15 credits. Think I should stick with that?" I asked.

Dean just shrugged.

Hmmm...risk more essays that could get interrupted by hunts, or not? But I could graduate sooner if I stick with 18 credits a semester...

"I'll just stick with 15, maybe I'll bump it up to 18 next semester," I decided.

Dean jumped up and cheered, earning a glare from a librarian.

"Alright, you finish submitting that, and we'll go on a pizza run."

Uriel's POV:

Although Heaven was designed to be big enough to house all the souls of any human that died and escaped Hell as well as fitting every angel in existence in their true form, while also having the room to let angels do their duties and go through battle practice and different training for things like flight or healing; Heaven was apparently still not large enough to escape the sight of Balthazar for longer than an Earth's day.

I suppose I could have just flown back to Earth, but it would be a pointless practice since Balthazar would just wait at the gates for my return, and that's assuming that Balthazar would not just follow me to Earth. Raphael had given me that warning not to tempt Balthazar into going to Earth after he had warned me about his search for me.

Visions of the havoc Balthazar could cause if he was left unchecked on Earth filled my mind. Even worse, he could decide that the fledgling needed one-on-one training directly from him. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be if Gabriel-may his grace rest in peace and return to us, wherever he may be-was around to join in.

"Urie-baby! I've been looking for you!"

Lovely. The menace has arrived.

"Hello, Balthazar."

"Darling, I've heard the most fascinating rumors floating through the wings of the choir lately. Is it true?"

"You will have to be more specific about which rumors you are referring to, Balthazar."

Balthazar waved a hand towards the nursery fields and looked pointedly at me. A glass of champagne appeared in his hand as he talked.

"The rumors that there is a fledgling, obviously! What else could I have meant?"

"Well..." I drawled, "I have heard the most fascinating rumor that Michael and Raphael lost a bet to a few of the cupids and will have to enter a drag competition soon."

"That's not- wait, seriously? I have got to see this. Where is it? When?"

"L.A."

"Well, obviously, Uriel," Balthazar rolled his eyes.

"I believe it's this little place called Tony's Saloon. It's somewhere downtown. They'll be going on Friday night."

Balthazar made a show of conjuring a planner and writing it in after making his champagne glass disappear.

His wings started to flutter, signaling he was about to fly off. That must mean I succeeded in dist- "Uriel?" Balthazar said, looking into the distance.

I barely held back a sigh of defeat. "Yes, Balthazar?"

"Don't think you have gotten away from me, I'll find the fledgling soon enough."

Then, before I could act on the horror flooding through me, Balthazar flew off.

Sam's POV:

I waited until Dean was busy with washing the car before leaving. It would take him a while to finish. Dean may like to pretend that he's one of the laziest people alive, but he was always really dedicated to making sure that Baby was as spotless as humanly possible.

It's not like I was doing anything bad. I just needed to be alone. And I couldn't let any of the other's know what I was doing. But that didn't mean it was bad. Great, now I feel like a toddler defending why he shouldn't get in trouble for stealing a cookie.

But, if I remember correctly from one of our future hunts, if I go through the trees by the motel, I can walk for about ten or fifteen minutes and reach this clearing. Nobody would think to look for me there.

Being back in this body was frustrating. It was mine, of course, so it's not like it felt like that one hunt where that stupid teenager had swapped our bodies. But it was still different. Like deja vu, I suppose. I kept forgetting that I was shorter, that I had less muscles, that I couldn't just expect Dean to trust me on hunts at the same level as before.

I suppose things could be worse. I could have stayed in that coma, demons could have found me before I could adjust to what was going on, the angels could have decided to experiment on me...instead of whatever the fuck they were doing.

"Sam..."

Okay, I admit it, I jumped like a foot in the air. How was I already found?

"Really, Sam?"

I spun around, trying to find the owner of the voice.

"Show yourself!" I yelled out.

"You have been acting suspicious, Samuel," they scolded.

Suspicious? Excuse me, no I haven't. Nobody knows that I'm not the same as I was before the coma. I would have had to deal with guns and devil's traps and holy water and and and...fuck.

"Sam, just calm down. Everything is okay."

Oh, right. Like telling somebody to calm down ever actually works. Thanks for the suggestion.

"Samuel, listen to me. You need to calm down. Your heart rate is getting too high, and if you don't calm down, I will have to sedate you."

Sedate me? The clearing was suddenly covered in a weird fog, as if the world was reacting to the threat. Was it a god? Were they going to sedate me using the fog somehow?

"Hello, Sam." This one was a different voice. I felt like I should know it.

I spun back around, and the fog increased.

"Who, who's there?" I yelled out.

A hand grabbed my arm from behind me. I screamed in surprise.

"Sam, it's me," said the second voice.

It was right next to me, obviously the owner of the hand. He dragged me to the ground. Not in a vicious way, but slowly and calmly.

"Sam, do you not remember?"

Remember what?

"Look at me, Sam. Do you not remember me?"

I gave in and finally looked into Cas' worried face.


	6. Who Needs Parking Lots Anyway

Sam's POV:

"Cas! How are you here? What's going on?"

He helped me get off the ground. Once I was standing, he left his hands on my shoulders, as if to keep me steady.

"So you do remember me then? Good. Do you remember what happened before you ended up here?" he asked me.

Before I was here? I was in the motel room, waiting on Dean to go wash the car. There's nothing special about that. Or, did he mean, oh. That makes more sense.

"You mean when you were taking out the rest of Gadreel's grace?" I clarified.

Cas sighed. He pinched his nose and looked away from me. I couldn't help but stare at the human-like action. Eventually, he just nodded.

"What about it, Cas? Didn't you come back then too? Why'd you wait so long to come and see me?" I asked.

Cas continued fidgeting, and I kept getting more suspicious.

"I didn't come back at the same time as you, Sam. Things got, well they got worse with you missing," he eventually said.

"When you say worse..."

"Dean snapped. You wouldn't know, but Dean ended up with this...curse. It is called the Mark of Cain. It corrupts the soul, and eventually the curse would have required of Dean that he murdered you," Cas snuck a look at me before continuing. "He didn't think to ask about specific details like that when he was getting the mark, so don't feel like that was something he wanted to do, Sam. Your brother still loves you."

I wanted to run and never look back. I wanted to collapse to the ground and just cry. I wanted to go into another coma, never leaving it until the world made sense again. Instead, I bottled up all of my instinctive reactions.

"What happened to him? When did you get back?" I asked.

"He still hadn't found the First Blade by the time I left, but he did end up killing Gadreel and was searching for Metatron. I believe he was torn about whether or not to kill me as well, since I was not able to prevent your kidnapping. I came back a couple weeks after you vanished."

I started pacing. This was terrible. How could Dean do all of this?

"Wait-my kidnapping?" I questioned.

"Well-" Cas stopped, sounding embarrassed. "When I was extracting the grace from you, you started to get worse, remember?"

I nodded.

"I was going to stop, I didn't want to risk your death, but then this blinding light occurred, and I was forced away from you. Once I could see properly again, you were gone," Cas said.

"But wouldn't-" I started to say before stopping.

We hadn't known that Chuck was actually God when I left. Nobody would have considered his involvement. Hell, they wouldn't consider to look at God or Chuck. Of course they would think it was either Gadreel or Metatron. They would have been the perfect people to cause trouble. And they likely wouldn't deny their involvement either.

"Sam, I hate to stop this conversation, but we should probably leave before that Fomorian returns," Cas stated.

Seeing that I was about to start quizzing him on what the hell a Fomorian was, Cas grabbed my arm and flew us out of the woods.

Apparently whoever came up with the phrase "Out of the frying pan and into the fire" had a life just like mine. I didn't realize what was wrong right away. I blame the fact that Cas' flying made me really dizzy and nauseous due to my new wings.

Cas must have noticed what was wrong immediately, because the angel decided to fly off the second we landed. A little warning would have been nice. Instead, I only noticed that he was gone when I turned to look at him for advice once I sensed the new angel approaching me.

I had never met this vessel yet. It was a black woman, with curly hair as long as her fake red nails. She was giving me an emotionless look, which showed that the angel wearing that vessel hadn't worn it long enough to start figuring out body language.

"Hello, Samuel Winchester. I have been sent by Uriel to come and check on your well being."

Fucking Uriel. What is up with this dude? He's acting nothing like he used to.

"Um, hello, angel I haven't met yet," I said.

Unfortunately, Dean's "hot-woman-radar"- his words, not mine- kicked in, and he looked across the parking lot from wear he had been washing his car and saw us. I guess seeing me talking to a strange lady helped his "big-brother-radar" kick in to full gear.

I must have made the angel curious by leaning around her to watch Dean, because she ended up turning back to see what I was looking at.

"Uriel didn't want to involve the other Winchesters at the moment, we should leave," the angel said. She raised a hand towards my shoulder.

I took a step back. "Lady, angel, whatever, you shouldn't do that. I've been kidnapped enough lately."

Naturally, that was when Dean arrived. It's probably a good idea that Dad wasn't around to hear how winded he was from that sprint across the parking lot.

"Hello, Dean Winchester. I require Samuel's presence," the angel stated.

Wow. This angel was probably going to beat Cas on worse angel at acting human. Not that he's as bad now, but still.

"Look lady, you can either back away from my brother, or you can back away from my brother. Either way, back *step* the *step* hell *step* up *step* from *step* my *step* brother!" Dean gave the lady an almost gentle shove away from me.

The angel just took a step back. I don't know why that shocked me. Obviously an angel wouldn't have been knocked off balance, even if they were new to a body.

"Dean Winchester, I insist. I must speak in private with your brother."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Listen here, lady, I don't care how much you insist. I refuse to leave you alone with Sammy."

Surprisingly, a little bit of annoyance managed to creep into the angel's expression.

"You will not interfere with my mission, Dean Winchester."

She knocked Dean's hand away and rushed back over towards me. I tried to back away from her. I really do not want to deal with another kidnapping. Something under my foot suddenly rolled, sending me flying towards the ground. She grabbed my arm and yanked me back up. Her wings were twitching like crazy, barely in my sight. Suddenly, I saw Dean's knife rushing through the air towards us just as the angel started flying us away.

I was very irritated to recognize the place where we landed. Which probably sounds backwards, but I really would rather not be in Heaven again. Especially not because of some strange angel lady.

"Samuel, we must talk," the angel said.

Let's see... crowd of angels nearby pretending not to be listening, some very fake looking gates, lots of white floors...damn.

"Look lady, I don't know who you are. And you just kidnapped me. Do you really think I want to talk to you?"

Amazingly, the angel knew enough to roll her eyes.

"Samuel, we could not talk around Dean. But if knowing who I am is really that important to you, my name is Castiel."

What?

Dean's POV:

"Damn it, Dean!"

I was pacing like crazy. I had already searched the parking lot to see if I could find any residue left behind from Sammy's kidnapping, like if there was a spell involved. Nothing. Not even a smell. No strange flowers, no powder, no calling cards, nothing.

"Dean, can you describe what took Sammy?" Bobby asked.

I sighed and shook my head. We had already gone over this.

"It was this smokin' hot black lady. Red fake nails, real' curly hair, the tightest black jeans you can imagine, and a red top without any words on it. Um, nothing that screamed that she wasn't human from her looks. She smelled normal, I looked in Baby's mirrors and didn't see a flare from her eyes..." I shrugged.

"Balls!"

Dad slammed his fist onto the bed where he was sitting.

"Come on, Dean. There's got to be more to go off of than that. No residue, she looked normal, did she have a foreign accent? Hell, did she act like she knew Sammy before this?"

I stopped pacing for a moment to take a sip of my drink.

"I told you, she just was acting like she knew who Sam was. Sam didn't seem to know who she was, but wasn't surprised that she had shown up. She was standing really stiff, like she didn't know how to relax. She didn't seem to really have an accent. So, she definitely didn't have a foreign accent. But if she's lived a really long time, she might have found a way to hide it or something. Look," I waited a second. "There has to be someplace to check. There's no way they got that far away. There has to be something-"

The door opened. And there he was. That stupid tall kid, with his dimples and curls.

"Sammy!" I yelled as I ran and tackled him to the floor.


	7. Pagans and Sammys

Uriel's POV:

"And that's what it will look like when your little angel comes into the world!" the woman, Renee Alsmith, said happily before turning off the birthing video. Around the room, there were strange expressions on the human's faces. Almost as if they were going to vomit. Renee Alsmith expertly ignored their reactions, so perhaps it was normal for the mud-monkeys.

"Well, while you guys recover from that, how about we have a little break. Split up and socialize! Make some friends! Maybe you'll find someone you would like to set up playdates with in the future," Renee Alsmith recommended.

After a moment, the humans took her advice and started gradually roaming the room. One of the females near me grabbed her spouse's arm and dragged him over to where I was sitting in the room.

"Hello! I'm Patricia and this is Stewart. Is this your first time coming to the childbirth class?"

Well, as awful as it is actually talking to the humans, perhaps they will be of actual use.

"My name is Uriel. And yes, it is. Is it your first time as well?" I returned the question.

Patricia was basically hanging off of Stewart with the way she was wrapped around him.

"Oh no, why we've made it to every class so far. I suppose we really didn't need to come to all of them, but I felt like we needed a refresher. This little guy," Patricia put a hand over her stomach and sighed, "he'll be our tenth little angel."

One of the other expecting mothers and her partner joined the conversation.

"Your tenth! Good lord! How many more are you going to have?" the male newcomer asked.

Patricia and Steward stared at each other for a moment. "Well, however many God blesses us with, I suppose. We don't believe in using birth control, you see. If God didn't want us to have a new little angel, then Tricia wouldn't be pregnant again, now would she?" Stewart said.

Honestly, of all the things that these mud-monkeys could come up with. Why would they believe that God is going to prevent the conception of a new spawn for them? Did they think that he snapped his fingers and removed the sperm from the would-have-been-mother while they were copulating before one of the woman's eggs could get fertilized? With the frequency humans had sex, he'd have no time to do anything else!

"Oh," the other expecting mother rolled her eyes. "You're one of those Christians. Catholic I presume?"

Patricia sniffed with her nose in the air. "Yes. What's it to you?"

The other mother pulled on her necklace chain, revealing a pentacle. "Well, Tricia," she drawled out. "I'm pagan. Forgive me, but I'm a bit annoyed when people like you seem to believe that condoms are the worst thing imaginable."

Stewart crossed himself at the sight of the pentacle. Honestly, humans. What good would that do?

"Oh, really? Pagan's in this day and age? I thought the lot of you had realized the fault in your religion centuries ago. Guess this just proves that some people just never learn. Honestly, why your lord, Satan, is probably the cause of all of these poor millennials constantly going and murdering their babies!" Patricia yelled.

All of a sudden, a wave of dread ran through me. Though shockingly, not at the fight that seemed to be brewing between the two couples before me.

The door to the classroom was thrown open, bouncing off the wall with a loud bang. Renee Alsmith looked like she was going to faint from how offended she was at having someone barge into her classroom. In the doorway was a gleeful Balthazar. I sighed. Looks like I wasn't able to abide by Raphael's wishes to keep him away then.

"Uriel! Darling, I didn't expect you to be here of all places. And in such company as these lovely people?" He had walked over and was eyeing the breasts on Patricia and the pentacle the pagan was wearing. "You've been holding out on me! Is this because of Heaven's newest angel or did you just think that this would be enough to hide from me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Of course I didn't think I'd be able to hide from you here, Balthazar." Though I'd certainly hoped for it. "Why wouldn't I try and research how to take care of the young humans? Samuel is one after all."

Balthazar sighed. "Isn't he a teenager? These classes are for the newborn humans, Uriel."

The man with the pagan gave me a look like the stupidest man to walk the Earth. "You came here to learn about teenagers?"

I sighed before grabbing Balthazar's arm to drag him from the room. Behind me, the argument between the Pagans and the Catholics resumed, sounding like the pagan woman was reaming Patricia for her ignorance. After all Satan wasn't a part of the pagan belief system.

Dean's POV:

"Okay, Sammy, spill," Dad barked out.

Sammy gave us his confused little puppy face, "Um, my juice?"

Dad facepalmed. "No, why the hell-Sam. I meant spill what you know. You've been getting kidnapped what feels like every other week ever since you had your mystery coma. There's no connection between the places we've been every time this has happened, besides the fact that you were there. Not even the descriptions for what has been kidnapping you are the same, so unless you've got shapeshifters and demons teaming up to get you, then, well no, even then, what's going on? Why do they want you so badly?"

Sammy fidgeted with his glass of orange juice and tried to avoid looking Dad in the eye, as if that would buy him much time before he'd have to answer. Stupid kid.

"Sam." I gave him a look. Just get it over with and spill, kiddo.

He sighed.

"Okay, okay." His shoulders slumped. "But you aren't going to believe me," he said in a pitiful voice.

Dad was getting more impatient by the second, and leaned forward and jerked Sammy by the shoulder before shoving him into a chair.

"You see, I didn't want to freak you guys out. But um, remember that time when those demons kind of, sort of, flooded the motel room and kidnapped me?"

All of us gave him looks screaming that we knew he was stalling and to get on with it.

"Well the demon that kidnapped me was named Alastair. Do you know anything about him?"

Me and Dad immediately turned to look at Bobby. He rolled his eyes at us.

"I haven't been able to stir up any references for him. But obviously he's a demon, likely decently high in ranks considering he's on Earth and has a name he goes by," Bobby said.

Sammy hummed to himself and looked around the motel room.

"Well, now, that's too bad. It would have answered a lot of questions for me."

Then, Sammy began looking odd. It was almost as if his skin was...bubbling, I guess. I froze, just watching in horror, but apparently Dad and Bobby were a bit more familiar with what was happening. The next thing I knew, a silver knife was flying through the air towards Sammy and Bobby was rushing forward to stab him.

I had to squash the urge to run over and stop him. This isn't Sammy. Not Sammy. Can't be Sammy. They wouldn't kill Sammy.

Bobby stood over him, it, after it died. "Shapeshifter. Looks like you had it a bit on the nose there, John. Why would a shapeshifter need intel on a demon?"

I gaped looking between that thing pretending to be my brother on the ground and Bobby. "Nevermind that, Bobby! Where's the real Sammy?" I shouted.

There was a knock on the door, which triggered a lot of fast shoving and frantic movements to hide the shapeshifter.

I hurried over to open the door once I got the thumbs up from Bobby.

"Hell-Sammy?" I said as I opened the door.

I looked back at Dad, unsure of what to do. After all, it might be just a bit traumatizing to my baby brother to see his corpse, even if it was from the daily monster.

"Why are you blocking the door, Dean?" Sammy asked.

I shook my head to help focus back on Sammy. "Don't worry about it, dude. Where've you been?" I asked him.

I herded Sammy over towards the bed and shut the door behind him.

"That lady grabbed me, and like teleported me I guess. I didn't recognize where I ended up." Sammy said.

I grabbed Sammy's arms to check them over while he was talking so I could see if he was injured.

"Do you feel hurt anywhere?" I asked.

He took a second to assess everything before shaking his head.

"No, I don't think so. But I am kind of thirsty, do we have any orange juice?"

An hour later, I was once again standing over not-Sam's dead body.

"Shit kid," Bobby put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm starting to think I need to update the books. What's the coincidence that thirty shapeshifters would come in here dressed up as Sam and ask for orange juice?"

It was becoming a routine by now. Kill not-Sam, add him to the pile in the closet or the bathroom, just in time for the next one to arrive and ask for orange juice.

Then, right on time, there was a knock on the door. I sighed.

"Hello, Sammy."

The newest copy walked in and seemed to be rattled. Perhaps it sensed something was wrong? Or the other copies were due for a Sammy Convention and were late?

"Um, is there any orange juice in the fridge? I'm kind of thirsty. You wouldn't believe the day I've been having."

Dad and Bobby shared a look before sighing. As Sammy turned to open the mini fridge, Bobby grabbed him from behind and tossed him into the chair we've been doing the interrogations in.

"Guys? What's going on?" Not-Sammy asked, struggling to keep from being tied to the chair. "Let me go!"

"No can do, shifter. Where's Sammy?" I asked.

Not-Sammy was looking between the three of us, pulling off Sammy's distressed face to a T.

"What are you talking about? I'm right here!"

Dad rolled his eyes. "I'll grab the knife."

Sammy, I mean, not-Sammy, increased his struggling. "No, no, no, you've got to believe me! I'm me! I'm me! I swear! Don't kill me!"

Lovely. Another round of this. Bobby was behind not-Sammy, so he got the honor of holding him still while Dad came over and created cuts along his-it's arms. I was ready with another silver knife and was blocking the door in case it escaped the ropes and tried to leave. But when Dad sliced up this Sammy, he reacted normally.

"Sammy?" Dad whispered in shock.

Sammy, the real Sammy, was back. And now, thanks to us, he was scared shitless, crying, and bloody.

Dad dropped his knife onto the floor before wrapping Sammy in a bear hug.

"You're okay," he whispered.

Bobby hurried to undo the ropes around Sammy. I moved to go help, but before I could decide the best way to help Sammy there was another knock on the door. We all looked at each other horrified. I don't know why, but I guess I had assumed that the fakes would stop showing up once the real Sammy arrived.

"Quick!" I whisper-shouted. Dad sprang into action and yanked Sammy off of the chair and pulled them both into the bathroom. I pulled open the door.

"Dean! You wouldn't believe the day I've been having! Do we have any orange juice? I'm super thirsty," the newest copy said.

As awful as it has been for the last hour, killing all of these Sammy replicas, I never would have imagined how much worse it would be now that the real Sammy is in the bathroom to listen in on it.

"Why don't you take a seat, Sammy? I think we're out of orange juice, but I'll get you some water," I offered.

Bobby decided to interrogate this one. "Where were you?"

Not-Sammy laughed nervously. "This will probably sound crazy, but this man kidnapped me. He dragged me into this forest near the motel. I ran away from him. I guess I must have gotten a bit turned around or something, 'cuz I just now got back to the motel," it rambled.

I had grabbed water for fake-Sammy and decided to sit next to him on the bed. He was paying attention to convincing Bobby of his story, which was lucky for me because he didn't notice that I was going to use the silver knife to confirm our suspicions in time to stop me. The one good thing about having to kill replicas of my brother for over an hour was that I got a lot of practice in on killing shapeshifters.

"You can come out now!" I yelled to Dad and Sammy.

Dad opened the door before stumbling out with a shell-shocked Sammy. He kept looking between us and the shapeshifter lying on the bed.

"Alright Sammy, I've had enough of killing these shapeshifters. Where could these fuckers have gotten a copy of your DNA?" Dad barked out.

It took a bit for Sammy to quit staring at his corpse and to think of an answer.

"Um, maybe it was the forest? Near the parking lot? I was running, and I think I tripped. Maybe that was where they got it?" Poor kid. Too bad we can't exactly dump him on a therapist right about now, 'cuz there's no way this isn't going to give him some issues.

I moved towards the door only to be called back by Bobby.

"Stay here, Dean. I think Sammy's going to need you for a bit. I'll go and look for it. See if we can keep these shifters from switching into him."

Unknown's POV:

Alastair was unsurprisingly, testing the sharpness of his saw against some lucky soul's ribs. As Hell's best torturer, he was often found tormenting anyone foolish enough to be caught on his rack. What was surprising, however, was that the lucky soul he was playing with wasn't the itty bitty Winchester that had been captured.

Alastair didn't acknowledge the newcomer lurking in his playroom for several hours. Not that he was unaware of the demon, of course. But he was being a broody mess and wanted to take his pain out on whoever came near him. And because of his position in Hell, any demon that dropped by had to wait until he was ready to deal with them unless they wanted to join the souls stuck on his rack.

"Meg."

She sashayed into the room, taking the time to run her fingers along what was left of the chest on the soul in front of Alastair before giving him a slight bow.

"What do you want, Meg." He narrowed his eyes, growing more impatient by the second.

She draped herself around him, before moving over to sit on top of the soul after getting a warning look from Alastair. She sighed.

"Where's Winchester and why isn't he here?" she asked.

Alastair's eyes lit up in fury. He swept his arm across his work station, sending tools scattering across the playroom. A butcher's knife went through Meg's vessel and pinned her to the soul she was sitting on.

"I was given a message. The boy must live for awhile longer," he said.

Meg pulled out the butcher's knife before shoving it into the soul's thigh to get it out of her way. They peacefully ignored the renewed screams.

"Who ordered it? Surely they can be-" Meg began.

Alastair grabbed another knife and pressed it to her lips.

"Shut. Your. Mouth. They cannot be ignored. This wasn't some lowly demon, barely off the rack themselves, this message was from the highest place. Or should I say the lowest," he stopped to chuckle. "It came from the Cage, from Lucifer himself. He said things had changed, and if we killed the boy, he would bring his wrath upon us, and it would be biblical."

Around the corner, the last watcher froze upon hearing this. Not that Alastair or Meg noticed their existence. If Lucifer was stirring, his plans would have to change.

"If the boy isn't killed...how will we get Dean Winchester to make a deal?" Meg asked.

Alastair ignored her for awhile so that he could pick up a few of the tools that had fallen to the floor in his rage earlier. Meg tried not to look to closely at the clamps that he had in his hands, and ignored the memories springing up of the feel of them in sensitive areas.

"I don't believe it will be necessary any longer," he finally said.

Meg grew furious at the news, jumping off of the soul to storm out of the room. The watcher remained as still as stone in the shadows to prevent being noticed, and closed his eyes as much as he dared to prevent light from catching on them and giving his location away.

If what Alastair said was the truth, and to be honest, the chance of that is fairly slim considering this is a demon after all, then plans must be sped up. How was he supposed to, well, make life hell for everyone, if his plans didn't continue? Lucifer, sorry, Daddy Dearest, would just have to get over it.


	8. Explanations and Angels

Sam's POV:

"Alright, this is honestly getting down right ridiculous. We've never had to deal with so many back to back monsters before this. And I don't want to make it sound like you are the reason behind all of these attacks, but lay it on us, Sammy. What do you know? Why do all of these monsters want you so badly?" Dad said as we finished burning the pile of shape-shifters from the motel.

Damn. Well, it's been nice while it lasted. He's right. I've been expecting this conversation to happen sooner or later. I'm just going to have to hope that I can run before they reach for the shotguns.

"Okay," I sighed. What's the best way to explain this mess? "So obviously you remember the whole coma incident. I'm assuming that you and Bobby never found anything on this end to explain it?" I confirm.

Bobby and Dad share a look that just screams that they already don't like where this conversation is going when I ask that. "No?" Bobby answers.

I nod, "Right. That's because there was nothing to find. It was all on my end. You see, before then, I was, well, I was offered a chance to fix things, I suppose."

Bobby cursed. "What was it? Djinn? Demon?" He was already moving towards his truck to get to the books that he had with him.

I shook my head. "God, actually."

Dean laughs, "Good one, Sammy. But seriously, what was it?"

Bobby shoots him a look before turning back to me, "What kind of god? Did they tell you their name?"

Now that's interesting. I didn't think Bobby had run into any of the Pagan Gods at this point.

"It's not what you're thinking, Bobby. This wasn't a pagan god. It was "the big G" God," I correct him.

Dad shakes his head angrily. "This isn't funny, Sammy. There's no such thing."

Great. Of course not. Let's bring in the proof, shall we? I grab my cell phone before dialing Cas' number.

"Sam?" He answered immediately.

"Hey, can you pop in? We're at the-"

Naturally, Cas popped in before I could finish speaking. I hung up the phone and leaned against my shovel.

Everyone pointed their guns at him.

"Thanks for coming, Cas," I say. "I was just explaining why everything wants to kill me."

He nodded solemnly. "And I suppose you needed someone to provide proof that you had time traveled and ended up in the body of the present Sam?"

"What!" Dean yelled.

I toed the dirt with my shoe.

"Hadn't quite gotten that far, Cas. But, uh, yeah."

Dean was waving his arms, "Whoa, hold the phone, you did what now?"

Cas raised his phone, "Is this phone acceptable for holding?"

It was instinct at this point to look at the sky and wonder how angels could be so hopeless. "He wasn't literal, Cas."

Okay, maybe I should have waited to call Cas. "So, that offer to fix things I got? Turns out what Chuck had in mind-"

"Wait, Chuck? What did he have to do with anything?" Cas interrupted.

Ah, I never did get a chance to explain that, did I? Oops.

"Um, short version is turns out Chuck is God? So yeah, he's the reason I'm here. When you were taking Gadreel's left-over grace from me, I started to have a seizure, and Chuck basically took my consciousness, I guess? Anyway, he made it so that we were able to talk somewhere," I began explaining.

Dad looked like he was about to interrupt me, but Bobby waved me on. Bobby had grabbed his notebook and pen and seemed to be writing down questions. I was getting flashbacks to college lectures.

"Basically, he thinks we'd end up fucked if we continued things the way they were, so he offered to send me back in time with a few changes so that I could prevent the apocalypse," I summed up.

Dad couldn't hold back any longer. "The Apocalypse? The Apocalypse? Why the hell would you be involved in that?"

Thanks, Dad. Can always trust you to pull out the hard questions. Luckily, Cas had my back on this one.

"Samuel and Dean Winchester have been influenced by Heaven and Hell's forces to play their roles in the apocalypse. Without them, it wouldn't be able to begin," Cas explained.

Looking at Dean's face, I could already see him preparing to pull some self-sacrificial shit.

"Fortunately for us, at least until we end up with kids I suppose, the Apocalypse can't happen anymore," I threw in.

This time, it was Cas that was completely thrown off.

"Sam? What do you mean? Time travel wouldn't stop it from happening, you know this," he sounded like he was trying to ease me into bad news.

I couldn't bring myself to look at any of them.

"See, those changes that Chuck made, um, basically that means that Dean and Adam aren't my only siblings anymore," I said.

Cas' eyes widened. "There's more of you? That means there's more people that could end up as vessels!"

Dad seemed to be choking.

"Who the hell is Adam?" Dean demanded.

Can I just say this day officially sucks?

"So, Adam Milligan is our younger brother. He's like, I don't know, ten or so at the moment? I'm not quite sure when he was born, we only met him after him and his mom were eaten by some ghouls that Dad pissed off. Anyway, you're wrong, Cas. You see, it's not that Dad or Mom had more kids. It's that, um, Chuck had another kid," I explain.

I was shaking like crazy waiting for their reaction. I was waiting for Dad or Dean to switch their gun from aiming towards Cas to me instead. Apparently, I should have been watching Cas instead. He hit me so hard that I went flying into the pile of shape-shifter ashes. I totally didn't let a scream out while going through the air. Before I could recover from being dazed from the hit, Cas had picked me up and was squeezing the life out of me. I looked to Dean panicked.

"A little brother? Father's around? A little fledgling?" Cas was muttering in what seemed to be very confused baby talk.

Just to rub in how much more things could go wrong today, more angels decided to show up.

"Samuel! You there, release the fledgling immediately!"

Naturally, the angel shouting was the Castiel of the present. Who was still wearing that woman.

Cas turned to look at Castiel. I took the opportunity to escape the bear hug (angel hug?) to look at who else had arrived. Raphael, Michael, Uriel, was that Balthazar?

Michael was eyeballing Dad and Dean. And Balthazar seemed to be distracting Uriel with cat videos, and were those dolls with diapers on them? Focus, Sam. Potentially life threatening situation here. Raphael took a quick look between the Castiels before seeming to realize what was happening. He walked up to Cas and me.

"Hello, Castiel," Raphael greeted Cas.

Castiel seemed thrown off by that before he turned to stare at Cas. Focusing on his grace, I suppose. Confirming that it is the future him.

"Raphael," Cas nodded in acknowledgement before he went back to his weird cooing stuff. I swear, this is no winning with angels.

I moved to look at how Dad, Dean, and Bobby were reacting to all of this, they were being strangely quiet about everything; but had my view blocked when the rest of the angels finally gave into the urge to tackle me into the angel version of a puppy pile. There was an elbow digging into my ribs. And someone was on my hair.

I heard someone walking over to us and assumed that whoever it was would pull the angels off of me. Or shoot us while we are all distracted, I suppose. Wrong. Instead, the weight on me grew heavier when Dean decided to add himself to the puppy-angel pile. I groaned. Dad and Bobby laughed in the background.

Maybe this would all work out okay after all.


	9. Making Progress

~~~~~~ Sam's POV ~~~~~~~~

Naturally, just because the angels found out that I was their newest little brother didn't mean that everything was all hunky dory and

their weren't any problems. That just meant that everyone got distracted for a moment.

Our puppy (angel?) pile wasn't able to last very long either. Someone (Dean) accidentally shoved their elbow into my ribs, and all of the angels

jumped away horrified when I started coughing. Poor dudes, they acted like hugging me had given me a terminal illness or something. They were

running around panicking like headless chickens until Bobby smacked some sense into them. Literally, when it came to Balthazar. Him and Dad got

right to passing out orders.

Raphael was sent into the kitchen to make coffee, Uriel was picking up everything that got knocked down while we were rough housing, Balthazar

was following Uriel around "to help", which wasn't very convincing. Cas and Castiel were having a stare-down while Cas was cuddling me. Michael

was standing guard while Dad kept an eye on him.

"Alright, so you lot, are angels. From Heaven. Which exists now," Dean was saying.

"Yes, Dean. That's what I've said," Cas repeated himself, already used to Dean's cynical nature when it came to religion.

"So why would you be here? What would you want with us? Hell, how is Sammy some weird half-angel thing now?" Dean demanded.

I sighed before taking over.

"Me and Cas are from the future. Our friend Chuck turned out to be God, and he offered me a deal. I could stop most of the bad shit that we had to

deal with in our time, but I would need to let him give me grace-"

"Wait, why would you need to have "grace"? Why couldn't he just poof you here?" Dean interrupted.

Bobby was taking notes off to the side.

"It was supposed to help heal me. I, well let's just say I went through some trauma for awhile. And so he decided to fix that. The easiest way, I guess, was to

braid some of his grace into my soul, which is how I became a, uh, fledgling. And it was also meant to prove to the angels that God was still alive and well. After all,

no one else could have done this to me," I explained.

"Sam, what kind of trauma did you go through? Why would God need to personally heal you?" Bobby asked.

Images of the Cage, of Lucifer, of Dean leaving and dying, of the Trials raced through my head. I shook it to chase away the thoughts.

"What didn't I go through?" I laughed bitterly.

Before I could explain, there was another knock on the door. Dean, Dad, and Bobby all shared panicked looks as they remembered the shapeshifter killing spree that

they had been going through, which had thankfully paused during all of the revelations. They started shoving me and all the angels they could reach into the bathroom

and the closet. Through the door, I could clearly hear my newest clone asking for orange juice.

The angels were clearly flustered about being shoved around by humans. Michael was signaling something to them though, and they all ended up surrounding me, and Uriel

had wrapped an arm around my waist, clearly having been ordered to protect me if needed.

Damn, do I miss being an adult. I shouldn't have to have a flock of angels (or anything really) preparing to protect me. I should be the one doing the protecting.

That's my job! I definitely didn't want an someone ready to grab me and carry me away if things got ugly.

My frustration and anger at my situation was just building up, and I felt like I was boiling with anger.

"Ow, fuck!" Uriel shouted.

I looked, and the arm that had been holding me looked nasty. Like beyond third degree burns nasty. Of course it was healing before our eyes, but still. Yikes. I looked

down at me, after all, if an angel was hurt, I should be dead, right? My skin was bubbling and turning red. It didn't hurt, but it was definitely uncomfortable to

look at.

All of the angels rushed over to us at Uriel's shout.

"What was that?" I heard my newest clone yell, right before it sounded like he was killed.

Cas ran into the bathroom from the closet.

"Sam!" Cas yelled before coming to a stop in front of me.

He looked between me and Uriel for a moment before seeming to come to a realization about something.

"Sam, I need you to calm down. Your grace is reacting to your emotions right now. Take a couple deep breaths for me."

Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. I can do that. Obviously anger was literally making me hot. Maybe I should think of happy thoughts?

Okay. Kittens. Bunnies with hats on. Puppies in sweaters. My old dog Bones. Dean wearing his car washing shorts. Jess. The Cas and Dean romance that should have been

official already.

The door opened as Dean called in that the newest shape shifter was taken care of.

"Um, Sammy? Why are you-what are you doing by the ceiling?" he asked.

Wait, what? I opened my eyes, to see that yes, I was indeed floating by the ceiling. I looked around at everyone else, suddenly feeling half a second from a freak out.

Cas seemed to realize this, because he tugged my ankle to pull me down before he flew us away.

"Are you okay now, Sam?" Cas asked.

I nodded. "Thanks, Cas. I was getting overwhelmed I think. Any ideas for why my grace is starting to react to my emotions?" I asked.

He hummed as he thought. "Well, we all had to deal with some level of that as fledglings as we trying to cope with mastering control over our grace and our emotions. Originally, when Heaven was young and playful, we didn't mind letting our grace just react to our emotions. It was just another layer of communication, like body language."

"But not anymore?" I asked. Surely something had changed. After all, angels seemed to have a hard time understanding emotions at all.

"No. When things began to become more tense in Heaven, and we needed to act as warriors more often, we quit training like that. Especially when going up against Lucifer. He wouldn't expect us to have changed our methods, you see. So we have extremely strict control over our emotions now, so that we have strict control over our grace. But now we don't understand our emotions anymore. We don't let ourselves actually feel anything."

So obviously that wouldn't be a solution. I wasn't willing to become a robot again. Though something told me that since I have a soul, I wouldn't be able to become emotionless like the angels anyway.

We were interrupted by my cell phone ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hey kid, where did you go?" Bobby asked.

"Um, let me ask."

"Where'd you take me?" I directed at Cas, who pointed over to a familiar building across the parking lot.

"So, we're over at the Kum & Go around the corner. Cas took me away because this whole mess was starting to get to me," I explained.

"Well, kid. You know you've got me to talk to if you need it. Now, your Daddy is storming over there to make sure nothing else ends up happening to you. If he starts getting on your case about all of this just send him to me to deal with, okay?"

"Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate it."

I took the precious seconds before Dad could arrive to finish calming down. When he pulled up in the Imala, I was ready to go back to the rest, even if that meant I would once again have to face explaining what had happened to me.


End file.
